The Duma “Seven”

Published:Za PravduNo. 19, October 25, 1913.

      Signed:V. F..

      Published according to theZa Pravdutext.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 19,

      pages449-450.Translated:The Late George HannaTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Thelong-winded statements and arguments of the seven
deputies to the State Duma in defence of liquidationism create a very
strange impression.

Allthe time the seven discusssolelyDuma activities,
Social-Democratic activities in theDuma!

Outsideof the Taurida Palacenothingof an organised
character exists for the seven! “We, the seven of us, decided; we and
Jagiello voted; we appointed speakers; we adopted a declaration”—this is
all one hears from the seven. “We members of the Duma”, “we in the
Duma”—except for this, the seven know and understand nothing.

Theseven have already become so thoroughly infected with
liquidationist views that they have ceased to understand the ABC of
Marxism.

Accordingto Marxist standards, deputies to the Duma shouldnotcarry outtheir ownwill, but the will of the Marxist
organisation,not their owndecisions, but those of the Marxist
body as a whole,not their own, but its tactics. It is a shame and
a disgrace that this ABC of Marxism should have to be explained to Duma
deputies! What a pass their inclinations towards the liquidators must have
brought them to if they dare to act as non-Party people, as subverters of
the proletarian political organisation!

Theseven pro-liquidatorsdare not even ask“where is the
Marxist organisation?”

Andyet, this is the crux of the whole question.

Allappeals for unity are sheer hypocrisy if those who make them evade
the question of thesinglewill, thesingledecisions andsingletactics of themajorityof the advanced and
class-conscious workers of Russia organised on a Marxist basis.

ZaPravdulong ago indicated the criteria by which the Marxist
will of the majority of the workers, opposition to which means splits,
disorganisation and disruption can (and must) be judged.

Thesecriteria are:
(1) the elections to the Fourth Duma in the worker curia;
(2) the case of the workers’ newspapers;
(3) the trade unions. In Europe they add to these what is the most
important—the number of openly registered members of political
parties. Everybody will understand that data of the latter kind cannot be
obtained in Russia; they are partly compensated for bycommon
decisions, which every honest worker regards as binding.

Theliquidators and the sevendo not saya word about this,
not a word about the characteristics of the Marxist organisation, about its
decisions and its tactics! The liquidators and the seven want “unity”,
that is, they want the six workers’ deputiesto submit to the seven
non-Partydeputies; that is,they want to flout the will of the
Marxist body as a whole.

Theliquidators and the seven want the Social-Democratic Duma group to
act on its own according to its own sweet will,in isolation from and
opposedto this body as a whole. And this disgraceful, disruptive
demand they call a demand for unity.

Theappeals for unity made by the seven remind one of a well-known
quip: the seven want to “unite” with the six in the same way as a man
“unites” with a piece of bread. Heswallowsit.

Theseven non-Party men want to swallow the six Marxists; and they
demand that this should be called “unity”.

Thedestruction of the Marxist organisation by the seven deputies who
havealienated themselvesfrom the majority of the workers, by the
sevenpro-liquidatordeputies, by the seven who have forgotten
that in the Duma they are only thevehiclesof the will of the
majority of the workers—this is what the liquidators and the seven
deputies are aiming at!

Theworking class protests against this astounding, disruptive
behaviour of the arrogant enemies of working-class organisation, and
emphatically demands subordination in Duma activitiesas in all
else.